Pretentious
by The Extreme Piercing
Summary: Alice contemplates her lover, and thinks of little else. Saya just feels embarrassed by the attention. Saya/Alice slash. Based on the 2009 Blood: The Last Vampire live-action film.
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER: Saya and Blood: The Last Vampire are the intellectual property of Production I.G. No copyright infringement intended. I'm only doing this because you made such a fascinating character that I couldn't resist, guys.**

**Please be aware that the fiction contains some spoilers (but nothing too earth-shattering, I think). If that doesn't bother you, then read on.**

**Concerns a (completely non-explicit depiction of a) lesbian relationship, so be warned, if that sort of thing gets you riled up. **

**Pretentious**

Saya is a beautiful woman, and however much men flatter themselves that they are discreet or adroit, beautiful women always know when they are being stared at.

Saya is a huntress, and though predators may hide in the woods and the mountains and the city streets, she always knows when they are watching her.

Saya is an immortal, and has learned every trick and sleight that people use to conceal their gaze.

Saya always knows when Alice is looking at her. In the evenings, they sit quietly in their little apartment, Saya tending to her blades, Alice pretending to read. Saya can feel the girl's eyes on her, the book in her lap forgotten. Sometimes, if she is in a particularly mischievous mood, she will ask: "What are you reading?"

When they walk along the streets together, sometimes Alice's pace slows and she falls ever so slightly behind. Saya can feel the girl peering at her, and she cannot resist as a smile forces its way across her face.

When it's Saya's turn to drive, she knows that Alice is only pretending to be lost in the scenery. She knows that the girl is lost instead in her reflection in the glass. Saya guides their little Capri down roads and highways and narrow country lanes, and Alice becomes drunk in the sight of her.

Tonight, however, Alice is making no effort at all to hide her attentions.

Saya draws the whetstone across the edge of her sword. She sighs, and, putting the blade aside, turns to the source of her discomfort.

Alice is draped across the sofa at the other end of the room, her head nestling against one arm, her stockinged feet propped up on the other. A big, hungry smile is plastered across her face. For a few moments, the two stare at each other, Saya's eyes bland and expectant, Alice's twinkling with mirth. Finally, Alice's smile cracks into a grin, and she asks:

"Am I intimidating you?"

Saya shakes her head, her pigtails swinging with the motion.

Alice raises an eyebrow. "Really?" she asks, drawing out the 'e'.

Saya looks at her askance. "I know when you are looking at me, you know" she says, in her awkward, halting English.

"Does it bother you?"

"No."

"Good!" says Alice, giving an exaggerated nod for emphasis. "A _powerful, strong warrior_ like you shouldn't be scared when someone wants to admire you."

Saya stands up, walks over to the sofa, and curls up on the floor next to the girl. She offers her hand, and Alice takes it, threading their fingers together.

"What do you think when you are looking at me?"

"Well," and once again Alice draws out the 'e'. "Just now, when you were sharpening your sword, I was thinking how you're like Diana"

Saya's forehead creased. "Who?"

"Diana Nemorensis," Alice said grandly, and Saya's mind swam as it tended to whenever she heard an English word that overwhelmed her. "Artemis. The Lady of the Woods."

"I'm sorry? What?"

"She's a goddess. She lives in the forests, and she's the lady of the hunt." Alice seeks Saya's eyes, and holds them. "Diana is strong, and proud, and she's afraid of nothing. She's a great hunter, and there's no beast in the world that she can't kill. That's what I think about when I look at you."

Saya stares for a moment, still confused. When the adoring expression on Alice's face does not change, Saya opts for a phrase that she has found very useful in times like these.

"You are very clever," she says.

Alice manages to get out an "oh!" before she melts entirely. Cupping Saya's face in both her hands, she leans in, and presses her mouth against her lover's.

-

Alice watches Saya as the craving seizes her. She watches as the woman begins to shake uncontrollably, and shambles awkwardly towards the fridge. She watches her pull the door open, and fumble with a paper bag. She watches as a metal top skids across the kitchen floor, and Saya puts the bottle to her lips. She watches as Saya downs the entire contents in one gulp.

The thought comes to her:

_Saya is like Frankenstein's Monster._

_She was created by a great, powerful man in a moment of foolish weakness. She was abandoned by the one that should have been responsible for her. She was let loose into a world that had no love for her._

_But she doesn't have the same fate as Frankenstein's monster. She found me. The monster blundered its way into my arms. My care. I'll protect her. I'll make sure that this world will never break her. _

An empty bottle gripped in her hand, Saya fights to get her breathing under control. Without warning, she whips around, and faces Alice. Blood trickles down her chin, little droplets splattering onto the orange tiles. Her eyes are alive with savage hunger.

Alice stares back intently. Unwavering. The two gaze wordlessly at each other; the light is so dim, the apartment so indistinct, that Alice imagines that Saya could be the only other real thing in the entire world.

-

Alice watches Saya as she practices her swordwork. The vampire leaves their bed at four in the morning and carries her blades down into the alley outside. Most people are dead to the world; they won't see her. Alice peers through the window, and watches as Saya trains. She watches as Saya whirls about in the sicky light of a lamppost, her blade dancing about with such astounding grace that she wonders if she is dreaming. She watches Saya pirouette through the air, running along walls, bouncing off horizontal surfaces, building up mind-boggling momentum, all culminating in one devastating, ruthlessly efficient slash of her sword. She watches as Saya keeps alive four centuries of memories of war and battle.

_Saya is a Fury_, Alice thinks to herself.

_Saya is the Nemesis, and she came to me. My father is dead, and my family think I'm crazy. But it doesn't matter. If anyone ever tried to harm me, she would kill them. They'd be dead in a heartbeat. This world is a crazy, cruel place, but Saya will destroy anything that tries to hurt me._

Saya pauses for a moment, and stands there in the glow of the lamp light. Her forehead gleams with sweat, and she is breathing heavily. Alice peers down, and an expression of dark ecstasy burns on both of their faces.

-

Alice watches Saya as she sleeps.

She lies quietly in the dark, and waits until Saya's breathing assumes a regular pattern. Then she twists next to her, and indulges in the sight of her.

Alice knows what memories weigh on her lover. Alice knows what terrible things Saya has seen in the four hundred years she has been half-alive. Alice knows what dreadful experiences Saya has accumulated.

But it's remarkable how these memories disappear when she sleeps. It's amazing how the shadows flee from her face, and peace settles upon her.

Alice props her head up on her hand, and watches. The night passes a second at a time. The apartment building that is there home (for now) creaks and groans. A truck rumbles down the road outside. Saya breathes.

_Saya is a Muse_, thinks Alice.

_I was so sure I was gonna end up married one day, have a nice guy for a husband, and have kids and get old. But Saya revealed a whole other world to me, a world that hardly anyone knows about. She's shown me so many secrets, I could never go back. _

_I see everyone going about their lives, going to work, kids going to school, and they haven't a clue that the lives they live are just illusions. They have no idea that there's another world beneath their own. A world that's more real than there own. A world of monsters and hunger and madness._

_I could never go back. I could never pretend that everything was okay, that anything actually mattered. I could never fool myself that boyfriends and clothes and movies and politics anything else was actually important._

_I could never do without her. _

_I need her. Because she's the only thing in the world that seems real._

Alice lies in the shadows, and gazes at her lover. Without warning, and to her amazement, the landscape in front of her changes.

Saya's eyes do not open. She simply smiles, and says:

"What are you thinking about?"

-

**Thanks for reading. Reviews are always oh-so-welcome.**


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER: Saya and Blood: The Last Vampire are the intellectual property of Production I.G. No copyright infringement intended. Not doing this for profit, people.**

**Chapter 2**

We both suffer from the same obsession, Saya and I.

We're both fixated on a woman that neither of us can have; at least, not entirely. Both of us are consumed by a woman that we can't comprehend, that we can never understand, and who will never be completely ours.

-

I don't miss Japan. How could I, when my father was murdered there?

"Will you ever go back?" Saya asked me, late one evening.

"I dunno," I said. Saya had finally gotten to the point where she didn't freeze like an icicle whenever I got close to her, and that night I was lying across the sofa, my head on her lap. "It kind of holds a lot of bad memories."

She said nothing, and I studied her face for a moment. "You'll probably want to go back, though," I said. "It is your country."

"I don't have a country. Not anymore."

"Why not?"

"I spend so long hunting Onigen. I went all over the world, trying to find her. Africa, America, Europe, Russia. All the customs and traditions that I learn in Japan are not important. There is no country in the world that I call home. I'm more American than Japanese. I work with them long enough."

I pondered this for a moment. Then: "You should try being more Japanese."

"Why?"

"Do it for me. I mean, there are a lot of things about Japan that I'll miss. Shinto shrines, and ramen shops, and calligraphy, and all those funny signs. You can remind me about all the good things that I left behind."

Saya raised a sceptical eyebrow. "You mean I am like a souvenir of Japan?"

"Exactly!" I said, beaming up at her. "You're a reminder of my big Oriental Adventure! I'm never going back, but I took a little piece of Asia with me. You can be my own personal geisha girl!"

"Fuck you," she said, and her pronunciation was so terrible that I burst out giggling in her lap.

-

Japan is always _there_. I know that it always exists, across the oceans, thousands of miles away. A strange land holding memories that I want to forget forever.

And yet, the strange thing is, at the same time I can't bear to forget them, either.

After I was finished being thoroughly unhelpful in my debriefings, I was sent on a plane back to America. I just wanted to put everything behind me. I just wanted to finally be home. But then I realized that I didn't have a home anymore. Not really. Home disappeared when my father was killed and I became an orphan. Home was destroyed by a single bullet.

After everything that happened, I was sent to live with relatives in Pennsylvania. Uncle Terrance and his wife Lydia, bleeding heart New Age-types, unlike my militaristic father, but at least they were sympathetic to my needs. They chalked up all my 'emotional issues' to posttraumatic stress disorder. My father had bled out into my hands, so it was only to be expected that I'd be angry, or upset, or emotionally unstable.

Terrance and Lydia tried to give me room. They tried to be patient; they tried to create a stable environment for me. They tried to give me a safe place in which I could grieve; they tried to replace the home that I had lost.

What they couldn't understand is that I can never go back to their world. I've learned too much, and I can't just ignore everything and be a good American citizen and play a part in this society when I know what is going on underneath.

I couldn't adjust back to normal life. All the rituals that human beings follow, all the customs that they observe in order to sustain the illusion of peace in their little world, all seemed so…absurd, so laughable, so ridiculous. Maybe I had gone a little crazy, but meaningless little details about ordinary American life just caught my attention and made me so _angry_. Pancakes in the morning; flags hanging outside houses; people on the television chattering about nothing; massive billboards at the sides of roads selling garbage that you don't need; every moment that I spend in the ordinary world just made me more and more frustrated.

I knew what the ordinary world hid from the eyes of human beings.

One day, I walked home from school and found Saya sitting in the corner of my bedroom.

I remember the expression on Saya's face when we saw each other. She seemed surprised, for one thing, which puzzled me; why would she be surprised to see me when _she was sitting in my room_? I guess she sneaked into the house, and then started daydreaming as she waited for me to come home.

"You're alive," I breathed.

She stood up, and I barely heard her faint "yes". She stood there, awkwardly, her eyes darting about the room. She couldn't look me in the eyes, and it looked like she was at a loss for what to do. Saya had searched for me across the world, traveled tens of thousands of miles to find me, but she was so focused on tracking me down that she hadn't thought of what she would do when she found me. She had crossed half the world to get to me, and now that I stood before her, she realized that she wasn't sure what she wanted from me.

The initial shock wore off, and was replaced with warm relief. I let my schoolbag thump to the floor, and I walked over to where Saya was still standing, still unsure of what to do. I threw my arms around her neck, and wasn't surprised at all when she didn't return the hug.

We stood there, in the corner of the room, Saya as straight as a lamppost, her arms hanging at her sides, me hanging on to her and laughing softly. Every moment of every day since I'd returned to America, it was like I'd been trapped in some bizarre, materialistic, commercialistic hallucination, and it was driving me crazy. But at that moment, I held a token of the _other world_ in my arms. I had _evidence_, _affirmation_, proof that I wasn't crazy; proof that my traumas were real. Proof that all the awful memories that I had been left with were not fantasies.

I clung to Saya in that instant. She didn't return the gesture, but she made no effort to shake me off, or to push me away. We just stood there. Maybe I could have held on to her forever. Maybe she would have let me.

Eventually, I let her go. "Saya, what happened? I…I don't remember what happened to us. I remember your mother got a hold of me, and then…it was all black for a while…and then they found me and you were gone."

Suddenly, she was staring straight into me. Maybe I imagined it, but her eyes seemed to glisten, as if she was just on the edge of crying. Her lips moved, but nothing came out. At first.

"I killed her," she said. "I killed my mother."

-

I ran away that night. I left a note on my bedroom dresser telling my uncle that I'd be okay, but that I needed to be alone for awhile.

I lied about the 'alone' part.

When I disappeared, I had a dream about traveling the world with Saya. We'd go to all these exotic countries, and see the most amazing sights earth had to offer. No one would recognize our faces, and I'd have my friend all to myself.

I hadn't realized that I was in love with Saya. Not at that point. Which I guess tells you how utterly clueless I am, considering that I thought about her all the time.

Unfortunately, Saya quickly put an end to my dream. She took me up to Ontario, and showed me the small apartment that she was renting.

"This is my house, for the moment. I hope you like it."

"Why do we have to live in one place? We can do whatever we want! We can go anywhere in the world, Saya!"

"You have to go to school."

I wheeled on her, and gaped like a fish. "School? _School_?"

She looked at me quizzically. "Yes," she said, as if me going to school was the most logical, obvious thing in the world. Well, it was, but…

"What do you mean _go to school_?"

Saya looked confused. "You are sixteen years old. You have to go to school. It is the law."

"I've run away! I'm outside the law."

"It's okay. I prepare a false identity for you. When you register at your new school, no one will know who you are."

I sighed. Dozens of fantasies were slipping through my fingers, fading away in my mind. Saya and I trekking through jungles. Saya and I guiding a canoe down a fast-flowing river. Saya and I looking at the world's greatest works of art in galleries all over Europe. Saya and I watching the sun set over countless different cityscapes.

Forget about it, girl. Another two years of boring old study for you.

"I don't wanna go to school anymore," I pouted, miserably.

"Then you become stupid."

I gasped. "Excuse me! I'm a gifted girl. I have an above-average IQ!"

"Then you go to school."

Damn her and her airtight logic.

I was only joking about not going to school, anyway. Saya deserves an intelligent girlfriend.

-

The first time I kissed Saya, she recoiled away and glared at me. For a moment, I thought I had made a mistake that I could never take back. For a moment, I thought another home had been broken, a friendship ruined by my own stupidity. For a moment, I thought that I'd never be able to forget the fury in her face.

She caught me as I reached the door, and pulled me into her arms. I stood there as she held me, trying to get my breathing and my heartbeat back under control, trying to hold back the sobs. She stroked my shoulders and the back of my head, all the time whispering into my ear: "It's okay. It's okay. I'm sorry, Alice. I'm sorry. I'm going to take care of you. I'm sorry."

One week after I first kissed Saya, she still flinched whenever I got close to her.

Two weeks after I first kissed her, I was still the only one who initiated contact.

Three weeks, and she would take my hand in hers when we were walking together in the dark.

Four weeks, and she would idly put a hand out and stroke my cheek when I was in her reach.

Five weeks, and when I woke up whimpering and crying, the snarls of demons ringing in my ears, she was hovering over me, stroking my cheeks, whispering "It's okay, it's okay."

Six weeks, and at night she held me in the dark like a protective lioness.

Seven weeks, and she held my gaze for minutes at a time. We stared into each other, not needing to say anything, never looking away, just drinking in the sight of each other.

Eight weeks, and she still couldn't tell me that she loved me, even though I told her everyday.

-

I feel like Saya has two destinies, and I'm fighting against one of them.

It's not weird anymore when Saya drinks blood. It's always the same: she suddenly stops whatever she's doing, and begins to shake. If she's polishing her swords, there's a clatter of metal as she drops them on the floor and rushes towards the kitchen. If she's paying me 'special attention', she suddenly pushes me aside and lurches towards the fridge.

It doesn't creep me out that my girlfriend needs blood to survive. I fed her my own blood, once, and I'd do it again. You could say it appeals to the pompous, melodramatic, badly-written-romantic-novel-reading part of me. I just _love_ the thought of bleeding to death for the woman I love. It makes me feel all warm.

But do you know what does creep me out? Sometimes, when she's done feeding, Saya turns to me, and I see her face.

It's not the face of a human. It's not the face that I've spent hours studying, memorizing every little feature.

It's the face of a beast that cares nothing for feeling, or companionship, or loyalty, or love. It's the face of a demon that cares only for hunger. It's the face of a fiend that will devour anything to fill the emptiness inside it.

It's a damn bizarre expression that she wears when she finishes drinking. It's a strange kind of satisfaction, like a monster that has just devoured counted men, women and children and is sated – for now.

It's as if she doesn't recognize me. It's like she doesn't see the girl that has fallen in love with her, that would follow her anywhere, that would do anything she asked. When she looks at me that way, all the memories that we've collected together seem so meaningless. All the struggle that we've been through, all the suffering that she endured to protect me, all comes to nothing. All the wonderful, happy times that we've had, mean nothing at all.

When she looks at me that way, I can't help but feel that if those instincts took control of her, I'd be nothing but a piece of flesh to her. If the demon part of her won out, if her _mother's part_ won out, she's destroy me in an instant, and drain every drop of blood from me. I could scream and beg and squirm in her grasp, but it wouldn't make any difference. My own pitiful cries would mean nothing to her, and my voice couldn't reawaken the humanity inside of her. I'd be just another victim, fuel for her savagery.

-

There'll always be a gulf between us that I can never cross. There'll always be a hunger inside of her that I will never share. Always, those inhuman instincts and desires will be there beneath the surface of her skin, and I'll never understand them.

But, really, Saya has been in this same situation for four hundred years.

Not-quite human, not-quite demon, for four centuries Saya hunted her mother across the world. Onigen was the queen of demons, the matriarch of every monster that exists on the planet. There wasn't a hint of humanity in her; she knew nothing of warmth or compassion or fear. There was nothing to her but strength, and power, and force, and sadism, and cruelty, and a dark, savage hunger that would never go away.

Saya pursued Onigen across the earth because she murdered her family and brought suffering to everyone that met her. She traveled to every region of the world. She slew countless hordes of her half-kind to get an opportunity to kill her mother. To Saya, putting an end to Onigen was about revenge and loyalty, and also about justifying her own existence.

But wouldn't Onigen herself have seen the chase differently? I can imagine what she would have said to her daughter.

Demons only respect power and strength. In a way, was Saya in fact seeking her mother's approval? Was she not trying to gain her mother's respect by showing her that she was powerful enough and fearless enough and ruthless enough to kill a queen? By following her through hell, killing all her servants and finally killing her, was Saya trying to demonstrate to Onigen that she was worthy of being her daughter?

-

A gigantic steaming mug lands beside my geography book. The smell of chocolate wafts into my nose, and I see a marshmallow floating at the top. Saya's made my favourite.

She leans down to me, and I meet her kiss. There's no taste of blood.

"Hmmm" I say, breaking away. "You taste so minty!"

"I'm sorry I scared you," she says.

"You didn't scare me." Changing the subject, I say: "Wanna go to the fairgrounds with me tonight?"

"You should finish your homework."

"_God!_ You're not my mom, Saya." A pause, and then: "You're my sugar mommy."

"What?" she says, not understanding.

"Nothing," I answer. Probably just as well English is not her first language.

Saya wanders over to the window, and stares out over the city. I turn back to my homework, and try to concentrate, but it's no use. Visions of an implausibly beautiful woman keep floating into my head and distracting me from verb tables and vocabulary charts.

Saya hears footsteps across the floor, and turns to see me approaching with a hungry smile on my face.

Homework be damned.

-

**Now, if you've seen the film, you'll know that Alice is, to put it charitably, paper-thin as a character. Same goes for every character in the film, with the exception of the lead. As a result, it's necessary for a fanfic author to flesh her out a bit. At one point, she did wax philosophical about the novel 'Frankenstein'. Perhaps I'm clutching at straws, but might that **_**possibly**_** suggest that she's somewhat artistically minded? Hence the 'Pretentious' concept. Youngsters can be so funny when they try to be profound…**

**Not sure about the high-IQ part, but I think that in a realistic situation, a 400-year-old person would have **_**nothing**_** to do with a teenager, unless said teenager had above-normal maturity, intelligence and experience. There needs to be a meeting of minds!**

**Been pretty non-graphic thus far. I actually don't think Saya and Alice have gotten around to being sexual at this point in their relationship. I'd like to get round to something M-rated, but maybe that should be a separate story.**

**As always, reviews are very much appreciated!**


	3. Chapter 3

Here be porn. Look for chapter 3 of the story on Mediaminer.


	4. Chapter 4

**DISCLAIMER: Saya and Blood: The Last Vampire are the intellectual property of Production I.G. No copyright infringement intended. Not profiting from this fic.**

**Pretentious**

**Chapter 4**

_Always mind your contingencies._ That's what my dad used to tell me. _Plan for the future, and try to prepare for any possibility. Save your money, take insurance, and always make sure your taxes are paid on time. _

Little good that did him, in the end. My father was killed because his daughter got mixed up with demons and monsters and secret societies. Try planning for that.

But it's sensible advice, I guess. So, Alice: what exactly is your plan if Saya dumps you?

Let's say she gets bored of you. It could happen. You don't exactly have much to offer her in a relationship, do you?

Saya speaks eight different languages. You're so dumb that you only speak English. That doesn't stop you from making stupid, obnoxious jokes about her pronunciation, of course.

Saya watched the people that she loved die in a war that stretched on for centuries, and at the end of it all murdered her own mother. When you lost your father, instead of having the courage to deal with it, you just ran away to Canada like a coward.

Saya is an expert markswoman, and knows dozens of different martial arts. When you're threatened, all you can do is ball up and cry like the little kid that you are.

Saya survived by herself for hundreds of years. When you ran away from home you didn't even know how to cook a meal. Saya had to teach you. That was weird.

Saya has lived in all these different countries and cultures, and has the experience and knowledge gathered over centuries of travel. What knowledge do you have? Fashion? Pop music?

Saya is four hundred years old. You're just a child.

You don't connect with her on an intellectual level. You can't make her laugh; every time you try to say something funny it ends up splatting against the language barrier. But even if she understood you perfectly, no one would laugh at your stupid, smug, annoying jokes anyway.

You couldn't say something profound if your life depended on it. And it's not that she doesn't understand what you're going on about; it's just that she knows you have nothing meaningful to say. Saya has been wandering the world for hundreds of years, and she can recognize liars and frauds when she sees them. Try to say something clever; she'll see through you. You're just a pretentious little girl. She sees you for the poseur that you are.

You don't connect with her on an emotional level. You know that you're just making a fool of yourself every time you spill your guts to her, right? You can babble on about your feelings all you like. Reveal your soul to her, share your innermost thoughts in the selfish belief that you're actually showing her something important. You're just a child; none of your feelings mean a thing. Tell her you love her until it makes you sick. You don't even know what love is.

She'll never open herself up to you. She doesn't think you're mature; she doesn't see you as an equal. Why would she ever confide in you? You're just a baby. Even if she let you closer you wouldn't understand what was going on inside of her.

She'll get tired of being your teddy bear. She'll get tired of living with an airhead. Anyone would get bored with an immature teenager if all the teenager has to offer is sex and whining.

Okay, so Saya gets fed up of you, and dumps you. What then?

Do you have a place to stay? Nope. Saya pays all the rent on the apartment; you're just privileged to be her guest. If she does kick you out onto the street, where will you go? A hotel? A hostel? An alleyway? Under a bridge?

Do you have any money? You've been working Sundays at the mall, but have you actually saved any of your earnings? Of course not, you spend it on clothes and records and candy. _No need to worry about food or board, your girlfriend will take care of all that for you!_ You fucking idiot.

You're totally irresponsible. You never think of the future. Saya must think you're a complete moron, spending all your cash on worthless crap. Every week, when payday comes around, you come home with a shopping bag and this stupid, cheerful grin on your face. And Saya always has this blank expression, but you know what she's thinking: _You foolish child._

Okay, so you wind up homeless and penniless. What then? You could try going back to your uncle. But if you do that, you're going to have to explain where you've been for the last four months. If you tell them the truth, you'll get locked up in the loony bin. You'll have to give them a more believable story. Like how you went to live with this forty-year-old divorcee who wanted to relive his youth.

But first you'll have to get to your uncle's house. How far away is Washington, again? Six hundred miles? Do you have the money for a bus ticket? Better start saving, then, girl. Otherwise, you're going to be hitchhiking.

And then when the guy that picks you up drives you to a secluded backroad, Saya won't be around to save you.

-

There's a knock at the door.

I sit there, for a moment, my stomach clenching. "Come in," I say.

The light from the hallway outside pours into the room. Saya stands for a moment in the doorway, looking at me, and then around the bedroom. "You're sitting in the dark?"

I shrug. "I've been thinking."

She closes the door, and makes her way over to me. I gawk at her like a frightened sheep as she sits down on the bed next to me.

"I'm sorry I was angry at you."

"No, _I'm_ sorry, Saya," I say, and inwardly curse myself as my voice shakes. _Don't you dare start crying._ "I was just being selfish. I didn't mean to hurt you." _You didn't hurt her, you just embarrassed yourself._ "I thought I was helping. I won't say anything about it again, I swear."

"Alice, you have to understand. My children were better off without me."

A storm of protests builds up in my head. I get ready to tell Saya that _no, you're a wonderful woman, you bring light to every person you meet, and you would have been a fantastic mother._

Then I remember that it was my own awful attempt at pep talk that had Saya yelling at me in the first place.

"Why were they better off without you?"

"Onigen would have found them. She would have use them against me. I could not have any weaknesses until I kill her. I had no choice but to leave them. It would not have been fair to them."

"But Onigen is dead."

"They never knew their mother. Even if they're alive today, they're a hundred years old. They have lived for a long time without me. They don't need me."

"I just…I just thought that…"

_You thought that a silly little teenager could convince a mother to go out and seek the children that she had to give up a century ago. You thought that you were somehow helping her to become more human by encouraging her to search for a family that had been torn from her by war. You had the audacity to think that, despite all the pain that Saya had been through, all the anguish she had endured by being forced to abandon her own blood, a ditzy teenager could waltz in and make it all better._

_When you suggested to Saya that she might track down her children, did you somehow imagine that you were the first to think of the idea? Did it not occur to you that Saya thought about them all the time? Did it not occur to you that the memory of them would have plagued her for years? Did you think that you were doing her a favour, exhuming these demons?_

_Stop trying to help her. Stop trying to change her, or heal her, because you can't. Another person might be able to help her, someone with more wisdom and insight and depth, someone who can understand her, but this person isn't you. _

"What did you think?" says Saya.

"I…I dunno…"

"Did you think I was heartless?"

"What? No!"

She tilts her head, a curious look on her face. "You worried that because I leave my children, I have no emotion and that maybe I would leave you?"

"No!"

"Onigen is dead. I don't have to fight anymore. I…I can live without hurting others, now."

"Good! I'm glad you see that, Saya."

Her eyes fall to the floor. "I can't help the past. But the past is gone. I want to put it behind me. I want to move on."

"You know that I'll always support you," I say. _She defeated a demon queen, all on her own. If she can't find the strength to live within herself, then an unexceptional girl like you won't make any difference._

She looks at me. "Do you forgive me?"

My face scrunches up. I throw my arms around her neck and pull her close.

_Hold her tight._

_Cherish her._

_While you can._

**Relationships should ideally be equal, but that ain't always the case, and, when you think about it, the Alice/Saya pairing is frighteningly lopsided. **

**Thanks to those who left comments.**


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